Mercedes W13

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Stu
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Re: Mercedes W13

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ringo wrote:
20 Jun 2022, 18:39
So I was wondering.. Could Redbull have a sprung floor? and is this allowed by the regulations?
A sprung and damped floor could greatly reduce the impact of bounding and porpoising. Instead of depending solely on the suspension to deal with the porpoising, a suspension can be rigged into the floor.
Those same brackets that we see in the floor of the redbull behind the sidepods may well be damped.
We have already seen the spring and damper in the keel.
Added to that running rake in the car simplifies bouncing as the car will touch down on the keel first before the rear squats to the ground.
I think Mercedes need to investigate this and implement it. Soften the cars suspension and install a suspension in the floor, so that there is a degree of freedom between the floor and chassis under extreme loads.
In order for that to operate as you imply, the floor would need to run in contact with the ground. This is against not just the intent but the letter of the regulations.
In the last paragraph you are describing exactly what the purpose of the external stays that are a feature of Mercedes floor are there for. It seems that they are reluctant to increase the floor strength by adding CSA (which would allow in internal brace as has been viewed on the RB), preferring instead to utilise something that is inherently flexible in the desired direction, but has a very negative impact on airflow in a critical area.
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AR3-GP
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Merc have an absolutely massive, cantilevered floor. Flat plates have terrible stiffness qualities. Mercedes would likely need to add several kilograms of material to the floor to stiffen it without the use of stays because flat plates have a very low strength to weight ratio for deformations of the plate surface. They likely view the stay as less detrimental than any added mass.

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Big Tea
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Re: Mercedes W13

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AR3-GP wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 15:03
Merc have an absolutely massive, cantilevered floor. Flat plates have terrible stiffness qualities. Mercedes would likely need to add several kilograms of material to the floor to stiffen it without the use of stays because flat plates have a very low strength to weight ratio for deformations of the plate surface. They likely view the stay as less detrimental than any added mass.
Can they not bond a metal framework into it at laying up stage? Weight yes, but surely not 'several KG'?

A hoop and crossbar maybe from one of the lighter square section tubes?
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Just_a_fan
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Big Tea wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 16:38
AR3-GP wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 15:03
Merc have an absolutely massive, cantilevered floor. Flat plates have terrible stiffness qualities. Mercedes would likely need to add several kilograms of material to the floor to stiffen it without the use of stays because flat plates have a very low strength to weight ratio for deformations of the plate surface. They likely view the stay as less detrimental than any added mass.
Can they not bond a metal framework into it at laying up stage? Weight yes, but surely not 'several KG'?

A hoop and crossbar maybe from one of the lighter square section tubes?
Just add a thicker core layer. By separating the upper and lower skins, you increase the stiffness. Core material is relatively lightweight and it would also be easy to add carbon stiffeners in the core if required.

The issue isn't mass so much as thickness. They all seem to want to have the floors as thing as possible.
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Big Tea
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Just_a_fan wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 17:06
Big Tea wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 16:38
AR3-GP wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 15:03
Merc have an absolutely massive, cantilevered floor. Flat plates have terrible stiffness qualities. Mercedes would likely need to add several kilograms of material to the floor to stiffen it without the use of stays because flat plates have a very low strength to weight ratio for deformations of the plate surface. They likely view the stay as less detrimental than any added mass.
Can they not bond a metal framework into it at laying up stage? Weight yes, but surely not 'several KG'?

A hoop and crossbar maybe from one of the lighter square section tubes?
Just add a thicker core layer. By separating the upper and lower skins, you increase the stiffness. Core material is relatively lightweight and it would also be easy to add carbon stiffeners in the core if required.

The issue isn't mass so much as thickness. They all seem to want to have the floors as thing as possible.
A rigid box, as you say or even possibly like 3 layer corrugated cardboard sections? The. I have no idea how carbon and resin compare to ridged titainum.

They are smarter than I am so I'll let them handle it :mrgreen:
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AR3-GP
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Big Tea wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 17:44
Just_a_fan wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 17:06
Big Tea wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 16:38


Can they not bond a metal framework into it at laying up stage? Weight yes, but surely not 'several KG'?

A hoop and crossbar maybe from one of the lighter square section tubes?
Just add a thicker core layer. By separating the upper and lower skins, you increase the stiffness. Core material is relatively lightweight and it would also be easy to add carbon stiffeners in the core if required.

The issue isn't mass so much as thickness. They all seem to want to have the floors as thing as possible.
A rigid box, as you say or even possibly like 3 layer corrugated cardboard sections? The. I have no idea how carbon and resin compare to ridged titainum.

They are smarter than I am so I'll let them handle it :mrgreen:
Well, instead of thickening the floor, they tried to run a second stay instead. Safe to say, they really do not want to thicken the floor. There was talk of Alfa being "underweight" in the beginning of the year, but their floor was incredibly dodgy...

SuperCNJ
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Big Tea wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 17:44
Just_a_fan wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 17:06
Big Tea wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 16:38


Can they not bond a metal framework into it at laying up stage? Weight yes, but surely not 'several KG'?

A hoop and crossbar maybe from one of the lighter square section tubes?
Just add a thicker core layer. By separating the upper and lower skins, you increase the stiffness. Core material is relatively lightweight and it would also be easy to add carbon stiffeners in the core if required.

The issue isn't mass so much as thickness. They all seem to want to have the floors as thing as possible.
A rigid box, as you say or even possibly like 3 layer corrugated cardboard sections? The. I have no idea how carbon and resin compare to ridged titainum.

They are smarter than I am so I'll let them handle it :mrgreen:
With all of these ideas they will have to thicken the section (to increase its second moment of area) which I suspect they don't want to do otherwise I'm sure they would have done it. The only other way I can think of that does not involve thickening the section is to pre-tension/stress the upper fibres of the member or have tendons that are prestressed/post tensioned. This will be difficult to achieve on such a small scale and unlikely to be as rigid as a stay, but if they really wanted to do it I'm sure there is a way.

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BaSubScribe
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Re: Mercedes W13

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I know this is a W13 thread but they are some of the most interesting articles on floor development thus far and basically confirms Mercedes issue is their 'Aero Concept' which seems to be the underfloor more than the exposed zero sidepod surfaces.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-t ... /10322711/
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... JPZqF.html

Based on the level of detail of their floor it seems that Red Bull, more than the others, took into account the exponential nature of pressure/downforce/lift being a function of the Area x Velocity^2 and the variability of all the factors of a car moving at 150+ MPH (change in ride height, bumps, pitch, roll, tire squat, etc.). Their entire floor is designed to soften the transition along that exponential curve. As opposed to Mercedes, with an initial flatter floor and uniform central section that is less accommodating for the sudden rise in pressure/downforce. They were quoted as saying they got too greedy and went for peak downforce but was caught left footed trying to manage it on 18" tires and a loss of their suspension trickery. As the ancient proverb says..... LESS IS MORE.

A few snippets from the F1 article. Keywords throughout the article are transition, variability and uniformity.
As the speed of the car increases it is pulled closer to the ground and the ground effect – which is derived from the air rushing through the small gap of the lowest part of the tunnel to fill the lower-pressure higher area behind – becomes more powerful. As the gap closes to the last few mm, the speed of the airflow – and therefore the amount of downforce – increases exponentially.
The hazard is that it can become so close to the ground that the airflow stalls, triggering porpoising. A higher roof (curved) should make the downforce less height-sensitive, even if its theoretical peak downforce is lower. As the car lowers, this roof would appear to allow for greater expansion of the air and therefore less chance of the gap becoming blocked by excess pressure.
Adrian Newey has pointed out that there are many different airflows beneath the floor and the key is in getting them to work together. The inlet strakes at the front of the floor have variable geometry along their length, probably matched to the shape of the tunnel and therefore helping to equalise the pressure, giving the airflow more energy as it makes its way down the tunnel. A lot of effort looks to have been made to match the lateral and vertical shapes to keep the resultant volume as consistent as possible at different ride heights.
Similarly, the flat central keel is not uniformly pear-shaped as in other cars (see the Ferrari for comparison) and would seem to be shaped in conjunction with the varying height of the tunnel along its length. The tunnel volume available for the air obviously reduces as the ride height lowers. This shaping would make the volume change of the tunnel at various ride heights more uniform along the length. Ferrari's flat central keel is uniformly pear-shaped and less intricate than the Red Bull’s. But even within that general layout, there are several highly distinctive features of the Red Bull floor.
Image

What I am curious about is how much of their "greedy" aero concept is based on the amount of exposed surface area on top with the zero sidepod? Or is it a function of a flatter, less cavernous floor? Can you have that much surface exposure on top combined with a Red Bull type tall and variable tunnel height floor?

tok-tokkie
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Many thanks for those 2 links. To me this is the most interesting aspect of F1 at present.

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ringo
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Joined: 29 Mar 2009, 10:57

Re: Mercedes W13

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Stu wrote:
21 Jun 2022, 08:46
ringo wrote:
20 Jun 2022, 18:39
So I was wondering.. Could Redbull have a sprung floor? and is this allowed by the regulations?
A sprung and damped floor could greatly reduce the impact of bounding and porpoising. Instead of depending solely on the suspension to deal with the porpoising, a suspension can be rigged into the floor.
Those same brackets that we see in the floor of the redbull behind the sidepods may well be damped.
We have already seen the spring and damper in the keel.
Added to that running rake in the car simplifies bouncing as the car will touch down on the keel first before the rear squats to the ground.
I think Mercedes need to investigate this and implement it. Soften the cars suspension and install a suspension in the floor, so that there is a degree of freedom between the floor and chassis under extreme loads.
In order for that to operate as you imply, the floor would need to run in contact with the ground. This is against not just the intent but the letter of the regulations.
In the last paragraph you are describing exactly what the purpose of the external stays that are a feature of Mercedes floor are there for. It seems that they are reluctant to increase the floor strength by adding CSA (which would allow in internal brace as has been viewed on the RB), preferring instead to utilise something that is inherently flexible in the desired direction, but has a very negative impact on airflow in a critical area.
The suspension works when the floor comes in contact and only then.
The external stays are a different purpose. If you look on how they are, they are not designed to be a brace against the floor pressing into the ground. They are designed to operate in tension against the vacuum under the floor. The flexing of the floor is from collapsing under vacuum, not bending from physical contact with the ground. The stays keep the floor firm against collapse similar to a suspension bridge and its cables. This is why Mercedes say the rideheight will not change much. The floor will collapse regardless if it touches the ground. So this is another issue the need to fix.

The floor suspension on the other hand is to deal with the bouncing. The stays deal with purpoising. The suspension in the floor would reduce the G forces and smooth out the jarring from impact and bring some amount of driveability to the cars as we have seen with the redbull. It could also attenuate the purpoising.

Another way of preventing vacuum failure, in addition to ribbing, as is known in mechanical engineering, is to form a "knuckle" in the floor. The knucle is basically giving it a slightly domed shape. You see these dome shapes on most pressure vessels like compressed gas cylinders. The floor can have a ellyptical profile when viewed from the front. Assuming this is permited by the regulation.
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atanatizante
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Re: Mercedes W13

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PlatinumZealot wrote:
18 Jun 2022, 18:07
Mercedes will need this to seal the sides of the floor when the ride height is raised. The so called fake bargeboard.

https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 6x1024.jpg

The inlet vanes should aslo be scalloped so that air is tumbled inside them to lower the pressure.

Like rRedBull they should arch the underside of the floor creating a vault shape so that the vortices can have stronger support at "sweeping" away the upper boundary layer (Adding kinetic emergy) and lowering overall pressure.

I feel this is how RedBull are managing low pressures without slamming the floor to the road.

An experienced opinion regarding the function of these vanes and the entire RB18 floor :



On the same note, based on Baku pictures we could see that RB18 is running with some rake ... do you think that now they have more DF coming out of the diffuser rather than the Venturi tunnels?
The rake makes the diffuser bigger and could lead the centre of pressure to be shifted towards the front of the car.
I think they`ve just designed a floor until a certain car speed to avoid porpoising, then add the DF from the diffuser, which in my opinion has now a greater influence on the overall car`s DF.
Then, from the suspension point of view, a car with a rake is less prone to stall and has greater scope for more suspension movement thus riding over kerbs/bumps ...
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atanatizante
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Re: Mercedes W13

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ringo wrote:
20 Jun 2022, 18:39
So I was wondering.. Could Redbull have a sprung floor? and is this allowed by the regulations?
A sprung and damped floor could greatly reduce the impact of bounding and porpoising. Instead of depending solely on the suspension to deal with the porpoising, a suspension can be rigged into the floor.
Those same brackets that we see in the floor of the redbull behind the sidepods may well be damped.
We have already seen the spring and damper in the keel.
Added to that running rake in the car simplifies bouncing as the car will touch down on the keel first before the rear squats to the ground.
I think Mercedes need to investigate this and implement it. Soften the car's suspension and install a suspension in the floor, so that there is a degree of freedom between the floor and chassis under extreme loads.
On the same note, how about a damper driver seat system just to cope with the porpoising/bouncing/bottoming issues?
Yeah, I know: it`ll solve just the driver's issue ...
"I don`t have all the answers. Try Google!"
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The_Engineer
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Re: Mercedes W13

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atanatizante wrote:
23 Jun 2022, 14:45


On the same note, how about a damper driver seat system just to cope with the porpoising/bouncing/bottoming issues?
Yeah, I know: it`ll solve just the driver's issue ...
The issue with damping the seat is that it will reduce feel for the driver, it would almost numb their senses. We have found this even with kids in karts, someone recommended a while back to put some foam padding under my son's bottom to lift the weight fractionally for better weight transfer as he is very small. I noticed over the next few weeks he was making mistakes that he normally wouldn't, missing apexes, running wide, losing the back end a bit on braking. I removed the foam and he was instantly better. Driver feel so much with their backside.

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hollus
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Re: Mercedes W13

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Time for a refresher.
Thunder wrote:
05 Feb 2022, 12:37
https://i.imgur.com/NVPF2Qz.png

This is the official Mercedes W13 car thread. The thread has been created to facilitate discussion specifically about the W13 car.

Please, ONLY discuss technical items of this car. Refrain from speculation.

General discussion about the team, its drivers and performance can be posted in the team thread.

Livery discussion also belongs in the 2022 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team thread.
Rivals, not enemies.

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PlatinumZealot
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Re: Mercedes W13

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The_Engineer wrote:
23 Jun 2022, 16:02
atanatizante wrote:
23 Jun 2022, 14:45


On the same note, how about a damper driver seat system just to cope with the porpoising/bouncing/bottoming issues?
Yeah, I know: it`ll solve just the driver's issue ...
The issue with damping the seat is that it will reduce feel for the driver, it would almost numb their senses. We have found this even with kids in karts, someone recommended a while back to put some foam padding under my son's bottom to lift the weight fractionally for better weight transfer as he is very small. I noticed over the next few weeks he was making mistakes that he normally wouldn't, missing apexes, running wide, losing the back end a bit on braking. I removed the foam and he was instantly better. Driver feel so much with their backside.
You can solve that with selective damping. Above 2G there is a device that collapses and opens the valves in the damping cylinders.
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